A new 40-minute documentary film by Canadian History Professor Ron Harpelle, entitled Hard Time, focuses on the life of Robert Hillary King,
who spent 29 years in continuous solitary confinement until his
conviction was overturned and he was released from Louisiana's infamous
Angola State Prison in 2001.

Along with Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, Robert
King is one of three Black Panther political prisoners known as the
Angola 3. Last October, Herman Wallace died from liver cancer just days after being released from prison. Albert Woodfox
remains in solitary confinement to do this day, with the upcoming date
of April 17, 2014 marking 42 years since he was first placed there.

When Albert Woodfox's conviction was overturned for a third time in
February 2013, his release was halted because the Louisiana Attorney
General immediately appealed to the US Fifth Circuit Court, despite an
Amnesty International campaign calling on the AG to respect US District
Court Judge James Brady's ruling and not appeal. The Amnesty campaign (take action here) is now calling for Woodfox's immediate release and last month released a new video interview with

- Advertisement -

In March, Amnesty released a new interview
with Teenie Rogers, the widow of correctional officer Brent Miller, the
man who Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace were wrongfully convicted of
murdering. "This needs to stop, for me and my family to get closure,"
Rogers says. She expresses sadness that she tried but was unable to see
Herman before he passed and explains: "I am speaking out now because I
don't want another innocent man to die in prison."

In an email message
sent out by Amnesty, Robert King said: "Teenie believes me. She
believes that the Angola 3 had nothing to do with her husband's murder.
She believes that Albert Woodfox, Herman Wallace and I suffered years of
cruel solitary confinement as innocent men...The state hasn't done
justice by her, either. She's angry. We both are. Louisiana authorities
are hell bent on blaming the wrong person. Well, I'm hell bent on
setting him free."

(PHOTO: Robert King and Ron Harpelle w/ Kathleen Cleaver at the Montreal Black Film Festival. View more photos here.)Angola 3 News:How do the issues examined by your earlier film In Security relate to your new film, Hard Time ,
about Robert King, the Angola 3, and the use of solitary confinement in
US prisons? How did In Security lead you to Robert King and the
eventual making of Hard Time?

- Advertisement -

Ron Harpelle: I stumbled onto Robert King while working on In Security,
a film about barbed wire. I'm a historian who happens to make
documentary films and what really interests me is how things we see as a
part of everyday life have evolved and shaped the society we live in.
My film about barbed wire shows how a simple 19th century innovation in
agriculture became a means of restraining the movements of people and a
universal symbol of oppression.

Barbed wire is also known as the "Devil's Rope" and my objective was to
make a film that would leave audiences thinking about the barbarism that
surrounds us all the time. The film consists of a series of vignettes
about barbed wire that tie the stories of dispossession, suffering and
punishment together, and it is dedicated to the Angola 3. In Security
covers a little more than a century of history and it ends in the
Louisiana State Penitentiary, aka Angola.

I contacted the prison authorities and asked if I could somehow be
allowed to film in the prison. To my surprise, they wrote back
immediately and welcomed me to tour the facility. This was my first time
in a prison and I knew that for the purposes of my film I had hit the
jackpot. I had already filmed in the West Bank, which is a big prison,
and in South Africa, where they produce a razor wire with a fish hook
blade that is designed to cut and catch. What I needed was something
that brought the film to a conclusion and Angola is the most spectacular
example of barbed wire. This is when I started to read the history of
corrections in Louisiana and of Angola.

I soon discovered Robert King living in Austin and I made arrangements
to meet him when I was in town on my way to film a segment of In
Security at the border wall in Brownsville. I'm not sure what he thought
about me, a Canadian interested in razor wire, but I really had no idea
what sort of man King would be. I don't know what I expected other than
someone who would be able to tell the film's viewers what it was like
to be locked up in a prison for such a long time.

When I knocked on his door I was greeted by a mild mannered man living
in a small house decorated with Panther paraphernalia in every corner. I
had read his book and searched the internet for information about him
and the A3. I really couldn't believe my luck at finding a subject like
Robert King and I only hoped that he would be a good interview. In my
mind I was arriving to ask a wise man to share his thoughts with me and I
quickly cut to the chase by asking him to tell me about barbed wire.
That's when King told me he couldn't help me with my film because, he
said, "Where they kept me it was nothing but steel bars and concrete."
That was the moment I realized that another film, a sort of sequel to In
Security, would have to be made. Robert King didn't make it into In
Security, but he also didn't end up on the cutting room floor.

Over 40 years ago in Louisiana, 3 young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000-acre former slave plantation called Angola. In 1972 and (more...)

"Rob explores the difference between a natural, organic, bottom-up connection consciousness and our corporately imposed top-down hierarchical collective consciousness. What Rob is speaking about is the difference between an artificial and ultimately stagnate way of organizing the world and a natural, organic growth, which starts with a seed, sends downs roots and sends up shoots which blossom. By returning to a Nature-based theory of connection, the Bottom-Up revolution brings us back into alignment with Earths laws, returning humanity to its place in creation. Like a good gardener, Rob works into the soil of his thesis different voices that exemplify how this Bottom-Up revolution is expanding in politics, business, religion, personal self-awareness and story. And he places technology where it belongsas a tool to further our connection consciousness, not an end in itself. The bottom-up revolution is about democracy finally living up to its original ideals, where we the people decide what we need from our society."

Cathy Pagano, author of Wisdoms Daughters: How Women Can Change the World

Author Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes the mainstream media narrative.